Earlier this week UFO hunters got some incredible news in the form of a New York Times report detailing a $22 million government program that sought to determine whether UFO sightings held any water. Just what government contractors were able to prove over the five years the program was active remains largely unknown, but the report claimed that the government has unidentified “alloys” that may or may not have come from an alien spacecraft.

If you dream of one day meeting a creature from another world this is some pretty exciting news, but leave it to world-famous astrophysicist and noted Pluto hater Neil deGrasse Tyson to spoil everyone’s fun. In an interview with CNN, Tyson dishes the dirt on the so-called “alien” investigation and brings us all crashing back down to Earth.

Tyson’s chat with CNN focuses largely on one specific video clip that was released earlier this week showing what appears to be an otherworldly craft caught on camera by US pilots. In the short video, the seasoned pilots struggle to explain what they are seeing, repeatedly asking each other what the craft could possibly be and how it could be moving in the peculiar way it was.

The popular scientist started his brief rant by tackling the term “UFO” at its roots. “It’s a highly nonspecific term. It is so nonspecific, it admits that you don’t know what you’re looking at,” Tyson explains. “So just because you don’t know what it is you’re looking at doesn’t mean it’s intelligent beings, aliens from another planet. You just said you didn’t know what you’re looking at.”

That’s a fair point, but what about the actual object on the video, which has yet to be explained?

“It’s a flying object, and we don’t know what it is. I would hope somebody’s checking it out!” Tyson says. “I hope there’s a program from our Defense Department to make sure they do not pose a threat.”

Tyson goes on to note that he has never seen any real evidence that makes him think aliens have actually visited our planet, saying “Call me when you have a dinner invite from an alien.”